


The Beginning of the Partnership

by sophieisgod



Series: Fakespeare in Love [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/M, I don't know, M/M, it's a mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:41:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophieisgod/pseuds/sophieisgod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shakespeare in Love rip-off in which Louis is the star (supposedly) and Liam is the money.</p><p>Working title: Fakespeare in Love</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of the Partnership

“Never seen a play before!”

Louis is outraged.

“I am somewhat busy,” Master Payne says mildly, not looking up from his accounts. He has ink on his hands, the same stains Zayn always has, except Louis has never seen anyone less like Zayn in his life, no one less poetic. This penny-counter, here. It’s absurd.

“What, too busy to go to a theatre?”

“I’m in a theatre now, Master Tomlinson.” He gestures about him, at the debris of rehearsal, at the actors and stagehands milling about still.

“Never seen a play of Zayn’s? Never seen a play at all?”

Payne finally lays his quill down and looks up. “No,” he says simply.

“Why in God’s name did you give him your money, then?” Louis bursts out. “I could understand it if you’d seen the plays –” if you’d seen _me_ in his plays, he means; Zayn’s words in his mouth and the whole place clapping and shouting for them.

“Master Horan swore it was a sound investment. Is it not a sound investment?”

Niall has a habit of promising things, and a wide-eyed way of making them sound true. He’s Irish, though; he swears at anything. Payne should know better.

“There’s not much sure in this life, sir, and less in this business.” He leans in, confiding. “You’d do well to watch rehearsals more carefully. Make sure you’re getting your money’s worth.” He pats Payne's cheek sharply.

When he pulls back, smiling cold, Payne doesn’t look shaken at all.

“I’m sure I will, sir.” he says. “You’re the star, are you not?”

\--

Louis begins to suspect this play is not about him after all.

Zayn spends every moment with the boy Pears, burns through the night and arrives every morning with pages of furious scribble, hellishly good and barely a line for him to speak.

\--

“You were right,” says Payne. “About the rehearsals, they’re good to watch.”

“Oh?” says Louis. He watches Zayn fidget, and then dash across the stage to take Pears’ shoulders, turn him, Harry standing serene in his skirts.

“I didn’t imagine it could come together so quickly,” Payne says. “I didn’t imagine anyone could _write_ so quickly,” and Louis watches Zayn go in for the kiss.

“Pardon me, sir,” he says abruptly, and takes his leave.

\--

“He was talking to me, in rehearsals, as if I’d nothing better to do. God, but the man’s a bore,” says Louis feelingly.

“Is there boar?” Niall perks up, looks about the tavern. “I could eat some crackling.” Louis ignores this.

Harry says something through a mouthful of gargle.

“ _Harold_ ,” Louis says, impatient, and Niall slides Harry’s cup away and sniffs it.

“He’s not so bad, I said. And anyway, what does it matter? All you have to do in rehearsals is talk to people.”

“Yes, thank you,” says Louis, stung.

“I mean you’re hardly in any scenes,” Harry goes on. “I wouldn’t have the time, to stand around talking to the money.”

“What’s in this?” Niall demands, before Louis is moved to violence. He dips his finger to taste, makes a considering face.

“Honey,” says Harry. “Liam paid for it, said he was guarding his investment.”

“Oh, _Liam_ , is it now?” Louis says.

“His name, is it not?”

“Can I finish this?” says Niall.

“No!” says Harry, grabbing. “No, I need it,” and between the two of them it’s knocked over the table in half a minute, dripping sticky.

“You know,” says Niall, licking his fingers, “he reminds me some of Zayn.”

“Who does?” says Harry, licking Niall’s fingers.

“Liam,” says Niall. “Our Master Payne. It’s why I suggested the partnership. And hasn’t it turned out well?”

“Did you not _tell_ him to come to rehearsals, Louis,” Harry says.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” says Louis, unaccountably put out.

\--

“Does he always write for you like that?”

The scene is a jewel, and it’s good that Payne can tell it. Louis knows Zayn’s not writing for him, though, not any more. Still. The scene is a jewel.

“It’s no better than it should be,” Louis says, smirking a little. “He knows me, we came up together. Studied together, apprenticed together.” Them against the world and all of London. “He used to play handmaidens, you know.”

“Very prettily, I’m sure,” Payne says, and his face creases into a smile. Louis finds himself smiling back.

“And you play it very well, of course,” Payne adds; it’s only polite, but it seems as if he means it.

“Well, sir,” Louis says. “You have good taste, at least.”

“Will you not call me Liam?” Payne says, still smiling a little. “Everyone else does.”

Louis can think of no argument against it, so he nods, and then knocks him in the side, and Liam laughs, and they stand and watch the rehearsal together.

\--

The play is near on its feet, two days to go, and the theatre is singing with it.

The doors are flung open, breaking the afternoon heat, and in pour the men of some other, lesser company, yelling for Zayn and spoiling for a fight.

Liam steps forward, raises his hands to try and calm them, but Louis has been restless for days, itching for something. And so:

“Are the whorehouses closed so early, Master George?” he calls, and the brawl is hardly surprising, after that.

It’s not the first such fight; Niall has a habit of promising people things, and Zayn is near as bad, when he’s in his cups.

It’s not the first such fight, and so the company acquit themselves admirably. Louis dazzles one man with fancy, darting, empty footwork and then smashes an elbow into his face; Harry bites. He sees Liam slam a man into a column, and hopes the plaster is not too badly damaged. Niall runs at everyone like a whirling dervish, as he always does, and when Master George trips Zayn from behind (ever an honourable gentleman, that one), Pears steps up and cracks him round the head with the leg of a stool.

The last of them stagger out of the doors at that, half-dragging their wounded, and cheers echo around the theatre.

“Well done, Pears!” Harry shouts, and puts his arms around the boy’s middle from behind, hoists him up and shakes him.

“Stop it, stop!” Pears cries as the rest of them laugh, Zayn sitting up to say, “Harry, leave him,” and Harry sets him down roughly, laughing still as Pears, chest heaving, tries to right the pale golden hair tumbling down from his cap. From her cap.

They all stare.

“Shit,” she says, and runs.

\--

Zayn sits backstage on an upturned barrel, unlaced and desperate. It hurts to see him. He looks up when he hears Louis approach, eyes wild, everything lost.

“I’m so sorry, Lou.”

“Much good it does us,” Louis says.

On his way out he spies Liam, pacing nervously.

“Master Payne!” he calls. “Come with me, sir. We are drinking to forget.”

\--

The tavern is noisy, and they are laughing over it as best they can.

“We’ll have to teach you the dance,” Louis says. “Since Master Devine has knocked his head and cannot do it, and we must make up the numbers!”

“Poor Joshua,” says Liam, barely holding back a laugh. “He can scarce walk straight, I shouldn’t think he could handle a measure.”

“You have to do it!” Louis insists. “It’s your own money you’ll be wasting if we go without.” If there is to be a play at all, he thinks. He drains his tankard.

“An excellent point,” says Liam, and waves for more ale. 

\--

“You’ve cracked skulls before,” says Louis. “I saw you in there. You are a fearsome warrior, sir.”

“Hardly,” Liam says, and takes another drink.

“A merchant adventurer, you must have been, on the high seas. Or,” Louis goes on, warming to his theme, “a pirate king, perhaps? _That’s_ why you invested, you couldn’t resist Romeo and Ethel!”

Liam spits a stream of ale in his face and immediately shies back, as if he can’t believe he did it.

“Blaggard!” Louis cries, suddenly delighted despite his dripping face. “Scoundrel! Knave! Another drink!”

“Another drink,” Liam agrees.

\--

“You knew about Pears?” says Louis, disbelieving. “You knew she was a woman all along?”

“I thought you all did!” says Liam. “She didn’t look much like a man. And,” he adds, “Zayn surely knew. He loves her.” He looks wondering, drink-softened. “They are in love.”

Louis’ face feels hot, suddenly.

“So that’s what you thought, is it,” he says. “You think love is only between a man and a woman, so if Zayn loved her, she must have been a girl.”

“I recognised her,” Liam says quietly. “I know her father, trade with him.”

“Oh,” says Louis, and they finish their drinks.

\--

Liam insists they take off their boots, upstairs in Louis’ room above the tavern.

“I’ll not disturb the good people trying to drink in peace below,” he says.

“Peace?” scoffs Louis. “In that bearpit?” But he takes off the boots.

“And how should we begin?”

“You start upstage, with the gentlemen,” says Louis, gesturing. “You’re too tall for a lady.”

“I might be a lady,” Liam says. “There might be hair under this cap, you can’t be sure.”

Louis steps to him, pulls the hat off his head. He must have seen Liam without his hat before, but he can’t think when. His hair is short, curls a little.

“Gentleman,” says Louis. “As I thought.” He throws the cap towards the bed.

He walks Liam through the dance, and Liam moves easily enough, even with all they’ve drunk tonight. It’s silly to do this now, when he’ll only have to relearn it sober, but still Louis shows him the steps, watches him do it, smiles when Liam laughs at his mistakes. There’s only one measure left.

“Walk in a circle," he says, "and look like you’re in love. If you can.” It isn’t hard. He doesn’t know why he’s nervous.

Louis holds up his hand and Liam brings his to match it, leaving a breath of space between. It is big, ink-stained still, and very warm, Louis can feel it. He should roll his eyes, scoff to break the tension, but he doesn’t. He nudges their hands together, so that they touch.

Palm to palm.

“There,” he says, looking at Liam, steady. They should walk in a circle now. It isn’t hard.

Liam spreads his fingers, lets Louis’ slip between, holds them. They pull each other in, and into a fierce kiss.

\--

They go at each other’s clothes with lust-clumsy fingers.

Louis thinks of the first time he’d seen Liam, surveying the stage with his arms folded and his face set, not noticing Louis at all; how Louis had had no words to throw at him and then too many together.

He has no words now; he needs no words now.

Liam’s back is all muscle, under Louis’ hands. You don’t get muscle like that counting coins all day. Louis holds tight to him, digs his fingers in, as they tumble to the bed.

Liam is hot beneath him, and Louis pins his wrists to the pillow, just loosely, just so he can see. So much skin. There is a tattoo, dark and surprising over Liam’s ribs, and Louis bends his head to lick at it until Liam hauls him up again, pulls their mouths together again.

Liam’s arm is tight around his back, an iron band, and between them Liam’s hand on him, his hand on Liam. Liam breaks the kiss to moan into his ear, the sound an aching thing, and inside Louis everything is hot and spiralling. He cannot speak; he bites into Liam’s shoulder so that he does not cry out.

After, Louis lies there, half-dazed and breathing hot against Liam’s throat, and wonders that he never saw his throat before.

“It is a good throat,” he mumbles, grazing with his teeth, and Liam laughs, amazed as he, combs his fingers through Louis’ hair.

\--

“When I was a boy,” Liam tells him, quiet and close, “I ran away to sea.”

“Pirate king,” says Louis, “I knew it,” and presses his thumb into the tattoo.

“I couldn’t decide, though,” Liam goes on, nipping at Louis’ lips to still him. “Couldn’t choose between running away to sea and running away to a troupe of players. I liked the thought of telling stories.”

Louis is still, then. “Oh?”

Liam shrugs. “The docks were further away.”

Liam doesn’t say any more, but Louis can’t stop thinking about it, about Liam joining their company: Liam growing up with them, speaking Zayn’s lines, dancing with Louis on a stage, huddling with them on straw mattresses in the cold of night as Zayn whispered out the words dancing in his head.

“A very different life,” he says, finally, and kisses Liam, hot and open-mouthed. He wishes the bed were bigger, wants to roll over and over, but he does what he can, pulls Liam on top of him.

Louis revels in the weight of him, misses it when Liam raises himself away; he makes to protest but Liam kisses his chest, kisses lower. He bites gently at Louis’ belly, looks up at him. “And I am here now,” he says.

Louis swallows. “You are,” he says, and lets Liam roll him over. 

“And a good thing too,” he says, resting his head on folded arms as Liam settles between his legs.

“If you were anywhere else –” he says, as he feels Liam mouth at the top of his spine, start to slip lower.

“– Whatever would we do for money?” he says, as Liam kisses the small of his back, rubs the scruff of his beard against Louis’ skin. He draws in a shuddering breath.

“I have no –” Louis says, his belly tightening, and Liam says, “Hush,” and holds him open, and licks him apart.

Louis shivers through his whole body, and it is – it is –

“I should have run away to sea,” Louis gasps. “I should have – _Christ_!”

\--

“ _Were_ you a pirate, then?” Louis says. “Was it very exciting?”

Liam sighs at him.

“I know you think me dull,” he says, “that I’ve seen nothing –” and Louis has to interrupt him, curls in closer.

“Thought,” he says, and presses a kiss. “Just a thought.”

“I had a life before this play, you know,” Liam says. He smiles. It is so warm, his smile. “Though it was never so much fun.”

\--

The play, of course, is glorious. Zayn has a way of landing on his feet – Prince of Cats, that one, Louis thinks.

Pears appears at the last moment, hair flowing, shirt untucked, and is hastily buttoned up and pushed onstage; Harry’s voice holds clear as a bell; Louis dies with such passion and poetry as was ever heard. Liam dances; they dance together, palm to palm; the whole place claps and shouts and weeps for them.

Afterwards, Zayn grabs his chin and beams into his face, giddy with love and triumph.

“Just don’t kill me, next time,” Louis tells him. “Or if you must, delay until Act Five.”

“Done,” says Zayn, and kisses his forehead.

“And what should we call you, sir, now you are a maid?” Louis says, turning to Pears, handing her the drink he brought her.

“Perrie,” she says, “but I like Pears. It’s served me well enough.”

She’s fair glowing; Zayn can’t look away from her.

“She should have called herself Apples,” Liam says to him, once he’s let himself be dragged away from counting cushions. “Instead of Pears. For her cheeks,” he explains.

Louis has to bite his lip, lest he hurt himself smiling.

“Very poetical, Master Payne,” he says, and tips his cup to him.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all nonsense; I don't know anything, I just really like Shakespeare in Love.


End file.
